Psalm 2 - Kiss the Son

The text for today’s message is Psalm 2.

Imagine a family with several small children hiking along the edge of a massive, dangerous canyon.  What if the parents, knowing the danger, provided a safety harness, a tether, to keep their small children safe...but the children hated it? They saw it as a prison, not a protection. They screamed, 'Let me go!'"

The original recipients of this psalm lived in a dangerous world, just like we do. And just like them, our natural human instinct is to hate any restraint, even a life-saving one. We need this text today because we are still tempted to see God's loving rule as 'bonds' and 'cords' to be torn off. We face this every day. We feel it in our own desire for total autonomy, and we see it in a world that rages against God's authority, calling His protection 'oppression'.

This Psalm presents us with an opportunity: Rather than living in fear or embracing the world's rebellion, what if you could take refuge in Jesus as the eternal sovereign King who will keep you tethered to Himself so you don't fall in the canyon of despair, doubt, and fear?

With that opportunity before us, let's read God's word with expectation.

Psalm 2 ESV

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Though a massive dangerous canyon is all around…

Nations and people refuse to find refuge in the eternal King

It wasn’t just the nations and peoples around Israel that refused to find refuge in God, it was Israel too. There is a reason that the book of Psalms starts out with a warning to not walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the scoffer’s seat, but rather to delight in God’s law and live by it, for in the last two verses before Psalm 2:1, it says that the wicked will not stand in the judgment but will perish.

The Israelites and all people, even us today try to disconnect themselves from God’s tether, screaming at him that they don’t want his prison, his protection from perishing.

In verses 1-3 we see the nations, peoples, kings, and rulers…everyone, rejecting the reign of the Lord and his anointed. They see God’s tether as chains and not protection. In other words, the world doesn't want to submit to God's protection, his government over the world.

Why is this? It's the same thing as in the garden of Eden, like Adam and Eve, all people desire to determine good and evil for themselves. We want to be autonomous…a law to ourself.

And so, like the nations, we rage or are restless. Though we think by removing the tether we can be free, it is pointless, because we are simply prisoners to ourselves and this is destructive.

Our desire is to be the sovereign ruler over themselves and ultimately the entire universe. This works itself out even in today's culture as people reject the reality that God is sovereign, created the world as he did, and provides salvation only through his own eternal plan. People reject a sovereign God who is in charge and rules over them.

People often cover up this rebellion by naming classic arguments against God: the problem of evil, divine hiddeness, lack of adequate proof, violence in the Bible, apparent contradictions, morality is oppresive, etc. They justify their rebellion against God by claiming that God doesn't exist or the kind of God the Bible portrays isn't worthy of worship because he doesn't conform to their concept of a God. In other words, they are like children who call their parents mean and try to run away.

Or, people try to pretend that they don't need God and reject His grace and mercy found in Christ. They would rather earn their way to God then be indebted to him and truly give him wholehearted worship.

But even though everyone rages, plots against, and sees God's tether as a prison…

Jesus Christ is the eternal King who we must take refuge in

Though people can rebel, rage, and plot all they want, even banding together, huddled around a table trying to overthrow God's rule, the eternal King is still the only way to find safety from the dangers of judgment.

I believe, along with many scholars, that Psalm 1 and 2 were originally one psalm and were a sort of introduction to the whole book. The reason: there is no superscription, and verse 1 of Psalm 1 and verse 12 of Psalm 2 end with how to find blessing, really safety or refuge from judgment. It was written by David as several NT authors state. It was probably written after God's covenant promise to David in 2 Samuel 7 and was meant to be a coronation Psalm for the future kings of Israel, as foreign nations would constantly try to plot together to destroy them. Yet, as we read Acts 4, we can see that this Psalm was really all about the nations trying to destroy Christ and Christ's eternal enthronement after his ascension where God would declare what was already true to all the nations, that Christ is the eternally begotten Son who will reign forever over the nations who find refuge in Him and will destroy all those who refuse the tether of Jesus. And so, in short, the point of this Psalm is to show where true blessing and safety from judgment is found…in Christ the perfect man and eternal King who provides refuge from danger.

In verses 6–7 we see the Father’s majestic response to the rebellion of the nations: He installs and vindicates His Son as the eternal King over the entire created order. Here he says, “As for Me, I have set My King on Zion, My holy hill…You are My Son; today I have begotten You.”

These two verses belong together. Zion reveals the place of enthronement, God’s own presence, and the decree reveals the identity of the one enthroned…His eternally begotten Son. At Christ’s ascension, the Father publicly declared what had always been true: the crucified and risen Jesus is both the eternal Son and the rightful King of all creation. The One through whom all things were made (John 1:3; Col 1:16) is now, as the second Adam, enthroned over the renewed world.

This decree does not make Him the Son at that moment, he always was, rather, it proclaims to the universe that the eternal Son who became man has fulfilled the covenant of redemption and now reigns as the God-Man, the Son-King.

Here is the heart of our hope: the same Jesus who bore our shame now rules our world with the Father’s delight and authority. His kingship is not distant rule but the Father’s own love enthroned in human flesh.

Verses 8–9 reveal Christ’s universal dominion. Because He accomplished the work of redemption, he received the inheritance and authority as seen in Phil 2:9–11. All nations are given to Christ and are required to submit to His rule or face destruction.

Within the eternal covenant of redemption, the Father promised the Son that all nations and all creation would be His inheritance. The promises to Abraham and David echo this reality: a redeemed people and a renewed land are Christ’s possession.

Jesus now reigns as the mediatorial King, possessing the right both to save and to judge. Those who refuse His reign will be broken like a potter’s vessel, yet those who trust Him share in His inheritance and reign with Him forever (Rev 2:26–27).

Verse 11 describes what true submission to the eternal King looks like…worshipful obedience marked by reverence, joy, and trembling. All kings and rulers, really all people, are required to worship Jesus with reverent fear and wholehearted, joyful worship.

This fear spoken of here is not dread but awe-filled delight in the holy majesty of the Son. To “serve with fear and rejoice with trembling” is to acknowledge Jesus as God the Son, Creator, Redeemer, and Lord of all.

True fear produces joy; true joy deepens reverence. All who bow before Him in humble faith find refuge and blessing in His name.

All must be tethered to Him to find protection and safety from judgment and to keep from perishing. How can this happen?

Jesus, the eternal King, took our wrath and gave us refuge

Though we are like rebellious children who have plunged off the canyon in our rebellion, meriting judgment and to perish, Jesus was the "blessed man of Psalm 1 who rejects rebellion and delights in the law of the Lord." He is the perfectly obedient one instead of being like the nations who refuse to boey in v. 1-3. He"wholly and truly worshipped God and reverenced God" (fulfilling v. 11). He "willingly took on the form of a servant", the ultimate act of submission to the Father's decree. He willingly accomplished the pactum salutis, the covenant of redemption, fulfilling the Father's plan by His life and death. He lived life perfectly, and died to pay for our sins to bring us eternal life, and make us children of God, sons in the Son who are blessed in him and find refuge from judgment and perishing.

Verses 1-3 clearly show our rebellion against God and our refusal to submit and obey Jesus the King. Verses 5, 9-12 show how without a mediator, without the risen King, we have no refuge and blessing, and instead will be broken with a rod of iron and smashed to pieces like a potter's vessel.

But the cross shows us God's eternal plan (Acts 2; Ephesians 1:3-5) where the Father plans, the Son accomplishes our redemption as our substitute and the perfect Son, and the Spirit applies this redemption to us.

As we look at what we must do: reverently and wholeheartedly worship and simply take refuge in Him, it shows us that it is not about what we do, but about what He has done for us and that our response is simply coming from the joy and blessing of His Kingship and Sonship that we enter into through union with Him. While religion looks at "Serve" and "Kiss the Son" as the tollbooth to avoid the "rod of iron." Grace sees that Jesus took the rod of our rebellion and was "shattered...like a potter's vessel" in our place on the cross. Our response, worship and taking refuge, isn't our work to earn salvation; it's our joyful retreat into the salvation He accomplished.

Verse 12 shows us something incredible. If we submit to God and obey the King, kissing Jesus, like the immoral woman who continually kissed his feet when he dined at the Pharisees house, washing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair, we can enter into the sonship of God and be tethered to Christ in union with Him. When we do, we can be saved from the deadly canyon and find our life in Him.

But how do we know this for sure? When Jesus Christ was resurrected, He received the Holy Spirit, and this Spirit he sends upon us, making us be born again, adopted into his covenant family, and causing us to be tethered to Christ so that we are protected by him as our refuge, and now, like joyful children we can rest in his love and protection.

But that isn’t all, it isn’t that we are simply saved from judgment, by the Spirit…

Now we can live in and offer refuge to others in the eternal King

Remember our opportunity at the beginning? Rather than living in fear of the canyon or raging against the safety tether, what if you could be so secure in that tether that you could rest and even help others find it? Because of what Jesus did, now we see how that's possible.

For example, imagine you're a parent anxious over the cultural darkness and the future for your children. The old way of the flesh is to fear, to tremble at what's to come, to rage against the 'other side' as if you have to be the king and fix it all. But in the power of the Holy Spirit, you can find refuge. You can remember that Jesus is already on the throne. The nations have always raged (that's what verse 1 says!), but God just laughs (that's what verse 4 says!). In fact, like them sitting as scoffers, he sits in the heavens and laughs.

And so, because you remember this, you don’t have to fix the world, you can simply rest in the King's blessing. You do this because He is your sovereign refuge. And all of this can happen by the Spirit reminding you that He will bring His justice in His time, freeing you to live in His peace right now.

And so, you don’t have to get out your thunder thumbs and respond to every rebel on the internet as you doom scroll, but instead, you can do everything you can to teach your children to tether themselves to Jesus!

Or, imagine you're a software architect or a teacher, and your post on social media gets attacked by that worldly 'rage'. The old way is to rage back, to enter the fight, to 'win' the argument. But in the power of the Spirit, your new refuge frees you from that. You remember that Jesus, on the cross, took the world's rage and said, 'Father, forgive them'. Now you can simply disengage or give a soft answer that turns away the wrath or rage. You can do this because you're not the judge; Jesus is. The Spirit can remind you that this King offers refuge even to the rebels attacking you, so you can offer them peace instead of war.

For the retired person or the project manager who sees their plans collapsing, 'kissing the Son' means finding your refuge not in your 401k or your perfectly executed timeline, but in the King who holds all time. You can serve Him with fear and rejoice with trembling, holding both the awe of His power and the joy of His grace.

You should know that you are going to tether yourself to someone or something. It will either be the world or your own autonomy, or it will be to Jesus. The world offers you know refuge, just raging, Jesus offers you refuge and blessing. Which will you choose?

I hope you choose refuge and blessing, because Jesus, the eternally begotten Son took on flesh, lived and died, having no refuge and perished for you and for me so that we can be tethered as children to our God and be loved by the Father with the same love as the Son, and be seated with him and reign with him and join him in the inheritance that he was given for his completed work that we will share together, forever.

If you haven't experienced this grace but want to receive it today, simply confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that He was raised from the dead and vindicated by the Father as he was declared by the Father to be the eternally begotten Son and the eternally reigning King, and you will be saved and be tethered to Him by the Spirit and will live in his refuge and blessing forever.